The Maha Mandi Learning Method At NITIE

The Maha Mandi Learning Method At NITIE

Maha Mandi has increasingly become a common name among the B- school gentry. For those of you who are still living under a rock, Maha Mandi is a one of its kind event where students sell educational toys and handicraft products, sourced from NGOs, on the streets of Mumbai. While the academia, students and media alike focus on and rave about Maha Mandi-the event, I am going to lay focus on Maha Mandi-the learning method.

Its not very often that we get to practice and apply what we learn in classrooms, in the real world. Sure, we learn about the factors influencing consumer behavior in the class, but, have we actually seen them in action in the real world? What is the point of learning about ‘effective communication with clients’ when we have to wait until joining a corporate to apply the knowledge.

This is where the Maha Mandi learning method comes in. It’s basically a type of experiential learning that lets us apply the classroom concepts in the real world. When we go onto the streets with the aim of selling the inventory in hand, we tend to use any and every trick in the book to meet that aim. We use customer profiling to target the right customer base, marketing strategies to make the potential customer like the product, effective communication techniques to effectively convey the important pints about the product, and many such concepts.

Also, we get to know how the real world situations and behaviors differ from what is taught in textbooks. That compels us to first improvise and then apply the knowledge. The rejections we face from customers make us learn how to draw learnings from failures and move on. The sweet success of converting the first sale gives a glimpse of how one can get motivated through good work.

So, all in all, the Maha Mandi method complements the classroom learning and turns us into managers who are better prepared to face the world of business once we step out.